.101

[krickets]

You know what? I've been to the other side. Trust me. It's not that great. And the food sucks!



Let me preface this by telling you a[n extremely short] story. Today some friends of ours came over to the house and brought their two daughters, Diana and Soraya. Soraya is five years old and is finishing up kindergarten. It was raining buckets today and she and I went outside and sat on the back deck underneath the awning while it rained. At some point, she randomly said to me, "One day we're all going to get old and die." This of course prompted a serious, but short conversation between me and this adorable and precocious little one. But at the end of the day, who knew she was spoiling the end of lost for me?

Now, don't get me wrong, there was a lot I liked about the finale. There were also things I didn't like. A lot of people have said, "it's not perfect." And I'll concur with that, but I think I may have to re-watch in order to appreciate the complexities of the whole she-bang. This reaction primarily deals with the last fifteen minutes of the show and nothing more than that.

I was thrilled that they finally merged the sideshow and the island timeline. That was something I was hoping for and something I knew that we would get. But as I told slybrunette, I wasn't particularly happy with the place that thought-submarine eventually docked.

Sideshow, for me, now means that they're all, including Aaron and probably Ji Yeon, dead. Whoever survived -- those who did or did not make it off the island -- they lived full lives and then eventually died, as people are prone to do. So now, the sideshow is after they are all dead and have met up in their "special place with all the glowy white light" aka heaven.

I don't know, it just felt heavy-handed and too overt and well, plain. Juliet was wrong. It didn't work. [Unless you're talking heavenly candy bars.] Not even in some "wait, we can still make this work, kind-of" sort of way. I was hoping the sideshow would end up being something fantastical, some actual chance for these characters to start over.

But it isn't magic at all. It's simply the afterlife. And that makes me sad in a way that isn't cathartic at all.

It is simply these last few moments of the show that have me wishing it ended differently. So I will have to go back and watch it again to properly digest how I feel about the finale as a whole.

Comments

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Just fucking word to all of this but especially: I don't know, it just felt heavy-handed and too overt and well, plain.

[gigglemonster.livejournal.com]

I was hoping the sideshow would end up being something fantastical, some actual chance for these characters to start over.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I really wanted it to be this too.
It's nice to have some kind of full circle end to it all but I also think that going the route of having people be redeemed and simply start over and lead new lives where there are endless possibilities would have been just as good of an ending, if not a better one. To kind of free them and set them loose out into that world.
*shrug*
Oh well lol

[two-five.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to watch this again.

It just left me empty in some ways.

I was kind of hoping the sideshow would lead to something different. I don't know. *shrugs*

[cynthia-arrow.livejournal.com]

Valid reactions, definitely. Don't read below if you don't want to read a nice but contrary opinion. I won't blame you. ♥

I guess I just saw the sideways 'verse as their chance not to start over, but at least to get some closure. It actually makes it better for me, because the show is admitting that they did die, that people die all the time whether it's fair or not. Heavy-handed, certainly, but I liked the idea that they needed each other to move on -- because their experience on the island (alive) meant something.

Not that I know what in holy hell all that mystical island bullshit meant, because it certainly didn't seem to have a direct connection to the sideways 'verse. That's where I'm actually rather annoyed with the show.

[theladyscribe]

I concur. My thoughts were pretty much the same. I personally feel kind of cheated - and very glad I didn't waste the last three years of my life slogging through Lost and wondering how it would all end.

I really wish it had ended 15 minutes earlier, with Kate telling Jack to come inside when he's ready. And just stopping there, with no cheesy meet-and-greet and no absolute resolution.

[eponine119.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm not quite sure how I feel but it's along these lines.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

To kind of free them and set them loose out into that world.

I hope this is what fanfic in this fandom turns to. Because I don't want to read adorable heaven fic all damn day long.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Empty is really the right word for it.

*hugs*

This is what they made fanfic for I guess, haha.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

I guess it's nice to see the characters get closure and it sure is more than I hoped for, but the way they've done it just doesn't sit right with me. Like I said I'll have to go back and re-watch and see how I feel then. Right now I'm just kind of disappointed.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Haha I was just responding to your post.

The meet and greet was nice to see but not in the context of "crossing over" or whatever-the-fuck. I never really thought that the show would take its shaky off-again-on-again redemption theme to such a literal degree.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I wish I felt differently. But damn, I don't.

[comingintoland.livejournal.com]

I'm just taking the "moving on" stuff as more open ended, in order not to start screaming. I'm taking it as now they get to move on to the lives they're supposed to lead, the ones where they get the stuff that makes them happy, like each other. If i think about it as them moving on to heaven I'll have break my computer screen or something because that shit's so no okay right now. I'm also kind of upset about not knowing what happened to the people on the plane. There's speculation that the crash shown in the credits was the Ajira plane, but i don't like that either.

Oh well, at least I can look forward to fanfic (hopefully). I'm expecting some Sawyer/Claire after the Ajira plane lands (safely), with Kate raising Ji-Yeon, and as far as sideways verse goes, I really want some Jack/Kate and Sawyer/Juliet where they're one weird, dysfunctional family with David in the middle of it. Because I like David and think he should be real. At least, these are the fics I would write if I could be that creative/motivated.

[kools-pad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see I went in thinking it would be a character ending at the quality of MIB and Jacobs amazing depth. So I was expecting absolutely no answers AND a bad character ending.

So them resolving the characters plights, made it good for me. And the imagery at the end was beautiful. I kind of found it realistic. How many people end up with the love of their life forever? People die, get sick, leave. This kind of touched me i guess. Its such a realistic tragedy of human life. And the after life thing can have any meaning. Because who the hell can say they know the afterlife is not that way?

[killmotion.livejournal.com]

I can see where one would feel unsatisfied I guess but for me there was closure with all the characters. Everyone got to be with whom they loved and they got their new start...because well if it was heaven in the end, isn't that where you get to be happy forever with the ones you love? So them meeting up in the sidewaysverse was the precursor of all that was to come for heaven for all of them. They all lived full lives in the real world (which is what we saw leading up to the end...) but in the end they get to be together and that was what made it perfect for me. And why I was literally bawling and gasping for air. Tearing up just thinking about it now. I know lots of questions weren't gonna be answered but all I wanted to know in the end was where everyone would end up and that's what I got and that is why I was very satisfied with the ending.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed when I found out it was just the plain ol' afterlife. Mainly because it felt like first-season speculation that they had to die to get off the island and get their happy ending. I am glad they DID get their happy endings in the afterlife, but, yknow, afterlife. Kinda boring as a concept.

[two-five.livejournal.com]

That's the only way I can describe it.
Did it end differently than I thought it would be? Yeah, I'd say so. But I did have a feeling about the end.
Some happy moments, sad ones and some that left me not feeling anything.

*hugs back* Met some really cool people through it. The show was definitely mind bending.

LOL! True. I want to write my own ending! ;)

[zelda-zee.livejournal.com]

I agree it was heavy-handed, but I didn't expect subtlety. And it was too religious, but then, that's Lost for you. And it absolutely lacked imagination, but then, again, that's to be expected. I would have preferred the sideverse to have been the sort of thing you wanted, but in the end, I'm okay that it turned out to be the afterlife.

Although, one could always imagine that rather than going to heaven or some such, they actually now get to live the lives they were meant to have, that is, they get to try again.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

I think by the time the credits started to roll around I was still reeling [in the bad way] from the whole heaven thing that I could have cared less about what the crash in the credits meant. [This has all happened before and it will all happen again?]

Regarding fic, well for me that's just gonna be the polar opposite of all those adorable canon pairings that reunited in this we-swear-it's-not-purgatory place.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised you liked it given all the shippy fan service that went on. Which you tend to hate. My heart is not made of coal, I do care about these characters, but I don't really give a shit whether or not Charlie [who, despite everyone else having better lives, was still a junkie douchebag in the sideshow] ends up with Claire in the afterlife. But maybe that's just me!

[It's probably just me.]

The idea that some die, that some move on and live their lives until their last -- all the while missing the person that they loved -- Richard, Kate, Sawyer, Claire, without their so-called better halves, Isabella, Jack, Juliet, Charlie -- that is very realistic. And maybe they didn't even live to be old men and women, maybe they died young. We don't know what happened to them and maybe we shouldn't. And maybe if that is how it ended, without the fucking heaven metaphor, I would have been happier. Even without the possibility of the sideshow being a second chance at life.

But that saccharine sweet, Titanic ending did not sit well with me. This is what it was to me [Youtube embed below]:

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Yeah but I don't think everyone would or should be comfortable with a big fat heaven metaphor. For me, I'm not. At least not with this show. Maybe I'm just not the type who likes nice and tidy endings.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's my problem with it. Maybe it's just too boring? I don't know. I still need to re-watch but I don't know if I'll ever be really "okay" with that ending.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

I guess that is Lost for you, but it's never been that overt and undeniable. [And so fucking final.] I was getting comfortable with the idea of playing in the sideshow world re: fic, so I think I'm going to continue to pretend that it's NOT the afterlife.



I'm still sad it's all over and done with.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

I love what Lost has done for me. Someone said that the "place where you could find each other" is a big metaphor for fandom -- by happenstance, not intention -- and so in that way it's very poetic. And I think, you know, despite my disappointments with the show, whatever those may be, it has led me to discovering some great friends and experiencing these awesome people and this amazing community. So I guess it can't be all bad if you think of it that way.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

To me the sideshow verse wasn't even real. It was a place for them to work out stuff. Like Jack's son. I don't think he really existed. He's not dead, he just never was. Jack needed to believe he had a son. Jack had father/son issues and this was helpful to him in getting to that place in the end. But I feel like none of that stuff in sideshow verse was really real. Sideshow Sayid wouldn't forget Nadia for Shannon just like that, would he? No, I think it was just a place to resolve stuff.

And interesting that Charlotte and Daniel weren't in the church. I guess they still have unresolved stuff?

I'm still puzzling over my reaction to the finale. I don't feel particularly nitpicky (what was the point of the Dharma initiative, what happened to Rose and Bernard and Ji Yeon?). Not because I don't care just because well, in a way I do know what happens to them. At least I got some answers I can sort of understand. I'm not sure if I like the answers but at least they are somewhat comprehensible and Lost-like. Yes. At least it felt like Lost. I stuck with Lost all this time so I must have liked the show. And the ending felt like the same show I'd been frustrated with, yet stuck with all along. That may be enough for me.

[weatheredlaw.livejournal.com]

There are parts of the finale I didn't like either. I thought Smokey's death was rather anti climactic, but Jack's was perfect, so that made up for that. I'm still arguing with my dad about the island being purgatory (which he still insists it is omg), and I have to agree that, yeah, I was hoping the sideways was where they could all start over. But that's LOST for you. Never giving you anything you really want and always leaving things unanswered.

The more I think about it, the more I understand it and like it. But I, too, am sad that it's over now. :(

[kools-pad.livejournal.com]

I hate Titanic. Dread it. I hate ships. Dread them. And yeah, the campy thing was off the damn chain in this ending. However, considering I was expecting something as bad as almost every episode Ive seen for over 3 seasons. I was i guess touched that they gave our tortured characters closure.

Also, Jack was at his roots again. He was really tragic in the finale. And while I thought the heaven thing was kinda cheesy, I liked how the purgatory thing and moving on, told more stories about what happened to the characters afterwards. Sawyer probably tried to redeem himself, maybe raising his daughter, Claire raised Aaron, Kate helped Aaron and Claire and pined for Jack, and Hurley and Ben had an entire journey together on the Island.

[vikingwriter.livejournal.com]

I choose to believe they aren't all dead. The sideways was 'real' and the island a sort of joint-consciousness-kick-in-the-ass to all of them to get their life together. (Still haven't worked out Dharma/Others/Oceanic 6 stuff yet, but I just watched a few hours ago.)

Or, uh, hello, they're both 'real' and exist in separate branches of possibility. I'm more okay with that then, oh, we're dead, isn't it great we're all at peace and happy and done and DEAD. But that's just me. (And I really want Juliet to have been right. Otherwise, there was just no point. I mean, the girl nuked herself for the collective good. I'm just saying.)

[turquoisetumult.livejournal.com]

I was thrilled that they finally merged the sideshow and the island timeline. That was something I was hoping for and something I knew that we would get.

I was glad too.

But it isn't magic at all. It's simply the afterlife. And that makes me sad in a way that isn't cathartic at all.

It actually didn't really make me sad because isn't it everyone's wish to end up in a place where you are safe and happy and with your loved ones. That's where they went. And I'm okay with that. (I feel that they didn't need to constantly frustrate us with ridiculous mysteries every week in order to get there, but that's a different story for another time.)

[zelda-zee.livejournal.com]

I see no reason not to play around with the sideverse however you wish. Afterlife or not, there's room for lots of storytelling in that verse.

I don't care in the least about stories being Jossed or whatever. You should know by now that adhering to canon developments means very little to me when it comes to fic. Feel free to ignore the finale or anything else!

[ozmissage.livejournal.com]

Not even in some "wait, we can still make this work, kind-of" sort of way. I was hoping the sideshow would end up being something fantastical, some actual chance for these characters to start over.

Thank you for this review. The thing is the finale was moving me and I was totally on board and then the last ten minutes happened. The minute I saw that ridiculous we are the world church window my stomach dropped. They basically undid the one thing that was pulling me through this season.

I wanted the characters to have a second chance, a new beginning. I wanted Juliet's death to have real meaning. I wanted what I was seeing to be real. The idea that it's an afterlife isn't even a little bit satisfying for me and it doesn't feel like an ending to this show.

I don't know. I feel like it was a nice goodbye to the characters, but a rotten end to the series. I get the distinct feeling I won't be rewatching season six very much.

[two-five.livejournal.com]

True. I agree with you! :)

[bebitched.livejournal.com]

The Juliet thing gave me pause too. I mean, in my head, the question was "did that atom bomb really work by undoing the plane crash?" and that the answer Juliet was giving was "yes." Which, obviously, wasn't true. I guess you can twist it around and be like, "well maybe she was really saying that it worked in that, in a way, it gave them a second chance." But even then...

I really need to rewatch this season. I feel like they left a lot open-ended, but also that some stuff won't make sense until I see it again knowing what I know now.